06/14 Links Pt2: Why Believing Atrocity Stories About Israel is Stupid, Even When They’re on CNN ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Harvard Law Review: U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, United Nations Security Council Asserts Illegality

In Resolution 2334, an outgoing U.S. administration — pressed for time and diplomatic opportunity — handed Abbas a lawfare victory that will fuel this project of patience. When the Trump Administration presses for good-faith negotiations, the PA can now cite to the Secretary-General’s quarterly reports concerning Israel’s noncompliance, each time riding the tide of “social alarm” until the winds of global politics shift back in its favor. In 2011, back when time was still on its side, the Obama Administration understood this well, vetoing a similar resolution on the grounds that it would “encourage the parties to stay out of negotiations.” Six years later, when the prospects of an Obama-brokered deal had vanished, the Administration reversed course, entrenching the PA’s preconditions and rewarding its preference for international fora over bilateral talks.
But what of the Obama Administration’s stated concern that settlement expansions imperil a two-state solution? Critically, the argument assumes that recent settlement activities risk foreclosing a contiguous Palestinian state. Yet Israel’s political geography proves to the contrary. Around eighty percent of Israel’s settlers live within miles of the Green Line and could be kept within its borders by “swapping territory equal to about four percent of the West Bank.” In the event of agreement, the remaining settlements, which cover less than one percent of the West Bank’s territory, would either be dismantled or allowed to remain within a Palestinian state. Removal would certainly meet resistance from the Israeli right; but even Netanyahu has acknowledged “some Jewish settlements . . . would not be part of [Israel].” Alternatively, the 100,000 or so Jews living outside the blocs could simply remain in the Palestinian state, just as almost two million Arabs live as a minority within Israel. Though the approach isn’t free of difficulty, it reveals that the truly intractable obstacle to peaceful coexistence isn’t settlements, but Abbas’s insistence on an Israeli-free Palestine. Settlement activity needn’t foreclose a contiguous Palestine.
Even crediting the contiguity objection, condemnation by yet another U.N. organ was unlikely to slow the settler movement; instead, it would foreseeably harden Israel’s resolve and expedite its settlement project. In celebrating 2334, Islamic Jihad, an Iran-funded terror group in the Gaza Strip, discerned what many within the Obama Administration professed not to see: that while the resolution alone wouldn’t deter settlement construction, it would advance the Palestinian lawfare objective of “isolati[ng]” Israel through “prosecutions” and “boycotts.”
The political gridlock between Israel and the PA has translated into immense human suffering for Jews and Arabs alike. And yet Abbas insists he will “wait for Hamas to accept international commitments” and “wait for Israel to freeze settlements.” So long as the international community embraces the Palestinian narrative without reservation and enshrines it into law, the PA will continue to wait for these unrealities; and in the interim, people will suffer. By abstaining on 2334, the United States countenanced this patience and the irredentism that lies beneath it. The result was to render peace an ever-distant dream.

Have you been to Ramallah? UNHRC says it is like Dachau

Amnesty International never asked to boycott the occupation by Indonesia of East Timor or Papua, nor of Turkey in Cyprus, Russia in Georgia and Crimea, Morocco in Western Sahara, or China in Tibet. There is only one state that Amnesty invokes for a selective boycott: the Jewish State. And what better occasion than the Israeli celebrations of the fifty years since the 1967 war to invoke the ban on its goods?
So Amnesty has just invoked a boycott of Israeli goods produced in the post 1967 lands. Kate Allen, head of Amnesty in UK, said Britain and other European countries have “the legal and moral duty” to introduce “the ban on goods produced in Israeli settlements”. The Board of Deputies of the Jewish community in England has condemned Amnesty for “ignoring the Palestinians stabbing, car attacks and gunfire attacks” Israel suffered. Marie van der Zyl, vice president of the Jewish organization, said that “Amnesty should remember that human rights are universal and apply to the Israelis as well”.
But hate doesn't obscure the minds of the humanitarian only on the Thames. On the shores of Lake Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council has just accused Israel of transforming Ramallah, the capital of Palestinian autonomy, into a concentration camp.
Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, head of that UN council, just said during the general session: “I grew not far from the Palestinian refugee camp at Baqa'a. I worked in the Wihdat refugee camp. I've been to Auschwitz-Birkenau, I visited Dachau and saw Buchenwald ...”. Hussein went on by comparing the “Palestinian suffering” with the Shoah.

Six Unknown Photographs from a Visit to Nazi Germany by Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini

Six photographs documenting a visit to Germany by Mufti Haj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini. [Germany, ca. 1943].
The photographs show al-Husseini, accompanied by a number of Nazi senior officials, dressed in uniforms, and a number of government officials, dressed in civilian clothes, during a tour apparently held at a camp in Germany (possibly, a camp of The German Labour Front). A lineup held for the visitors of the camp is seen in some of the photographs.
All the photographs are marked on reverse with the stamp "Photo-Gerhards Trebbin". The photographer's mark attests that they were developed in Trebbin, Germany, and may have been shot in its environs.
These photographs, previously unknown, document an unidentified visit to Germany by al-Husseini. We were unable to identify the men in the photographs. However, according to some speculations, among the photographed are possibly the Croatian politician Mile Budak (a member of the Ustase Party who served as Croatian envoy to Germany in 1941-1943), Iraqi politician Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, Fritz Grobba (the German ambassador to Iraq, later in charge of Middle Eastern affairs at the German Foreign Ministry, known for his ties to al-Husseini and Rashid Ali al-Gaylani during al-Gaylani's revolt against the Iraqi government and in the following years) and the Austrian politician Arthur Seyss-Inquart.

Why Believing Atrocity Stories About Israel is Stupid, Even When They’re on CNN

When a conflict breaks out, decent people feel sick. Their first impulse is to stop the violence, and protect innocent lives. So it is perfectly understandable that, watching shellings on CNN and debates at the UN and John Kerry and his spokespeople being solemnly “appalled,” even proudly Jewish viewers may conclude that all of this criticism of Israel can’t mean nothing. As the saying goes, where there’s smoke, there must also be fire.
But here’s why it’s highly unlikely that there is ever any fire under the smoke: Israel, for all of its flaws and its faults, is an open and democratic society. Its armed forces obey rules of engagement that are more restrictive than those under which American or European forces operate. Israel also grants the local and the international media largely unfettered access to its cities and to battlefields. Israel, therefore, has virtually no incentive to lie about easily verifiable matters of fact that occur in public while operating under a global microscope. You may have little respect for the current government in Jerusalem, and you may have your qualms about some or all of its policies, but, honestly, no one is that stupid.
Which leaves us with Hamas. Why is the group blatantly falsifying facts? The answer here is simple, too: Because they can get away with it, year after year after year. And they can get away with it because their arguments about Jewish perfidy and bloodlust were never based on facts to begin with.
What the terrorist organization offered the world in Gaza in 2014 was a version of the story contained in its founding charter, which is only the latest chapter in a very old story: The Jews are sucking our blood. Deliver some version of this libelous tale, and no one rushes to examine the evidence. After all, anti-Semitic atrocity stories don’t need evidence to back them up; they’re part of a larger conspiracy theory, in which “the Jews” are responsible for the world’s misfortunes.

The Six Day War Explained - In Animation

ADL Chief ‘Deeply Upset, Troubled’ by Presence of Anti-Israel Groups Among Signatories of Statement It Endorsed Defending US Muslim Community

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said on Monday he was “deeply upset” and “troubled” after discovering that a public statement opposing anti-Muslim bigotry which his organization recently endorsed was also signed by a number of radical anti-Israel groups.
“We would not sign onto any letter alongside these organizations intentionally,” Greenblatt told The Algemeiner.
The statement — an initiative of Muslim Advocates, a Washington, DC-based legal organization — was addressed to a number of mayors around the country and urged them to speak out against “March Against Sharia” events held on Saturday by ACT for America, a national security advocacy organization described in the statement as “the nation’s largest anti-Muslim hate group.”
ACT for America strongly disputes that label. On its website, it pointed out it had canceled a planned event in Arkansas after finding out that one of the local organizers was associated with white supremacist groups. The organization — which was founded by Lebanese-born conservative journalist and activist Brigitte Gabriel — said its “nationwide marches are in support of basic human rights for all — and against the horrific treatment of women, children, and members of the LGBTQ community that is sanctioned by Sharia law.”
A number of centrist religious and human rights groups signed onto the Muslim Advocates statement, including The National Council of La Raza and The Sikh Coalition. As well as the ADL, Jewish signatories included the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Union for Reform Judaism and the National Council of Jewish Women.
But the final list of signatories included a number of marginal groups known for their support of the BDS campaign and similar efforts to promote the view that the State of Israel has no right to exist. Among them was “Jewish Voice for Peace” (JVP) — a stridently anti-Zionist fringe group that encourages its members to mourn the creation of the State of Israel on Tisha B’Av, a Jewish fast day that commemorates the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Five members of JVP were arrested at the Salute to Israel parade in New York City last Sunday after they violently intimidated a pro-Israel contingent from the LGBT community.
Also among the signatories was the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), a Washington, DC-based group that frequently lobbies on behalf of the Tehran regime, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker organization that supports BDS, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has expressed sympathy for the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas as well as for the Muslim Brotherhood.

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Prager: What Happened to the Hysteria About Trump-Induced Anti-Semitism?

Perhaps the individual who most spread the lie of Trump-induced anti-Semitism was a previously unknown man named Steven Goldstein, executive director of the previously unknown Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect in New York.
They became famous for a few months when the media had to trot out a Jew with an official title -- and no Jewish title is as sacrosanct as one with the name Anne Frank on it.
Goldstein has publicly commented on "the cancer of Antisemitism that has infected his own Administration." He said: "Make no mistake: The Antisemitism coming out of this Administration is the worst we have ever seen from any Administration."
And he said to Trump, "The most vicious anti-Semites in America are looking at you and your administration as a nationalistic movement granting them permission to attack Jews, Jewish institutions and sacred Jewish sites."
Almost as hysterical about anti-Semitism in America was Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of a considerably more significant Jewish institution, the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL.
As reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in December, "Anti-Semitic rhetoric in the United States has reached levels unprecedented since 1930s Germany, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt warned a gathering of Israeli lawmakers in Jerusalem on Monday.
"'Anti-Semitism has wound its way into mainstream conversations in a manner that many Jews who lived through Nazi Germany find terrifying,' he said at the Knesset meeting, which was convened to discuss the plight of American Jewry under the incoming Trump administration."
(Note Haaretz's inflammatory description, "the plight of American Jewry under the incoming Trump administration," made six weeks before there was a Trump administration!)
Aside from fomenting hysteria about an almost nonexistent outbreak of anti-Semitism, all Greenblatt's allusion to Nazi Germany did was diminish the evil of Nazism and the Holocaust.

St. Louis Man Behind Some Jewish Institution Bomb Threats Pleads Guilty

The St. Louis man accused of being behind some of this year’s bomb threats against American Jewish institutions plead guilty on Tuesday to cyberstalking charges, saying he threatened the institutions to disrupt his ex-girlfriend’s life and cause her “great distress.”
“For this, I deeply apologize,” said Juan Thompson, 32, The Associated Press reported. Thompson faces up to five years in prison for each charge against him.
“Thompson made these threats as part of a cruel campaign to cyberstalk a victim with whom he previously had a relationship,” said acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Joon H. Kim. “Thompson’s threats not only inflicted emotional distress on his victim but also harmed Jewish communities around the country.”
Thompson was arrested by the FBI on March 3 for as many as eight bomb threats to more than a dozen Jewish institutions, include one targeting the Anti-Defamation League’s New York headquarters. Authorities collected evidence from his home, including about two-dozen laptops, tablets and cell phones.
More than 150 bomb threats were made against Jewish institutions during the first few months of this year. A few weeks after Thompson’s arrest, Israeli authorities arrested an 18-year-old Israeli-American man believed to be behind the majority of the threats.

Embattled Evergreen State Professor Accused of Hiding Racism Behind His Judaism

A biology professor at Evergreen State College who has been under fire in recent months for alleged racist actions has been accused by Jewish students at the school of using his Jewish faith “as a prop” to deflect pressure over his “anti-black language and behavior.”
Bret Weinstein was charged with “positioning himself as a Jew to invalidate the claims of racism being raised against him” in an open letter published last week and signed by a group identifying themselves as “[s]ome Jewish students at Evergreen bent on the destruction of white supremacy.”
This letter was published amid an ongoing controversy over Weinstein’s refusal to participate in an April equity initiative in which all the white members of the Evergreen community were “invited to leave campus,” for a so-called “Day of Presence” celebrating the college’s minority demographic.
Weinsten gained national attention for his decision to hold his lecture as usual despite the program, a move that led to student protesters mobbing his classroom, shouting him down and forcing him to relocate his class to an off-campus park.
There have since been calls from many at Evergreen for his resignation or termination.

‘Free speech advocates’ at Amnesty UK ban pro-Israel blogger from London event

The London-based Jewish blogger Richard Millett was banned, by the “free speech advocates” at Amnesty International UK, from attending an event last night in London called “Accountability and Human Rights at 50 years of Occupation”. The Amnesty event included Michael Lynk, UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, in conversation with Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC.
According to an email exchange we had with Millett this morning, he was banned even though he had registered for and received tickets for the event. All organisers told him when he tried to enter was that he was being banned because he’s a “disrupter”. However, Millett, who has made a name for himself in the UK by attending and reporting accurately on extremist events, has a body of work which demonstrates – via the audio and video clips he takes at the events – he’s always polite and abides by the rules of the event.
Here’s the video taken by Millett, where he demands to know why he was being banned.
Here’s what Millet wrote on Facebook last night.

Report: Oliver Stone Went on Anti-Israel Rant on Colbert’s Show That Didn’t Air

Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone went on an anti-Israel rant that did not make it to air during his panned appearance Monday on the CBS comedy program "The Late Show."
Stone appeared on Stephen Colbert's show to promote his Showtime series "The Putin Interviews." Stone defended Vladimir Putin to boos from the audience, and he said in an unaired portion that Israel "had far more involvement in the U.S. election than Russia," according to Page Six.
The report added Stone wanted Colbert to ask him about Israel, to which Colbert replied, "I'll ask you about that when you make a documentary about Israel!"
The portion that aired was unusually tense for a "Late Show" interview, as Colbert pressed Stone over the "fawning" tone of his Putin interviews. They were conducted over the course of 20 hours in a two-year span, and the Washington Post described the previews: "If the glimpse so far is any indication, the Oscar winner lobbed a lot of softballs at the Russian leader and took the dictator's words at face value."
Stone said one has to be "polite" in defense of a clip in which he simply accepted Putin's claim that he did not interfere in the 2016 U.S election, which 17 U.S. intelligence agencies said did happen.
"That doesn't seem like an interview," Colbert said. "That seems like an opportunity for him to merely propagandize."

PreOccupiedTerritory: Some Of My Best Friends Are Antisemitic (satire)

Jack, this is just amateurish. No one goes for old-fashioned antisemitism anymore.
It’s one thing to couch your Jew-hatred in terms of Zionism; we all do that. But if you want to keep those hymies from moving into this neighborhood in greater numbers, you’re going to need some arguments more sophisticated than Jewish control of the media. That’s not gonna play in Peoria. Besides, Peoria already has an established Jewish presence, so you have to rethink your whole approach.
What you need to do is find some issue that really bothers the people around here, and then develop some approach that somehow links Jews with the dark side of that issue – but you have to make sure it’s not a Jewish issue, or the antisemitism is too obvious. It’s been decades since a guy could count on knee-jerk Jew-hatred in America, or at least open Jew-hatred. What you want to do is attract the closet antisemites and give them enough plausible deniability so everyone can claim it’s not about the Jews’ Jewishness at all.
So what you might do is oppose construction of a synagogue, but only talk about how it would disrupt traffic, or the skyline, or be too noisy. And those concerns can be completely fabricated; you only need them to give you and your associates cover. Since we’re talking Orthodox Jews here, give an example of how crowded the streets will be on Saturdays with people going to and from services. If you’re loud enough about it, your vehemence can make up for any perceived ignorance. And if anyone pokes holes in your claim, like by noting that Orthodox Jews don’t drive on their Sabbath, well, you just move on to the next claim, no harm done. After all, it was just an issue of traffic as far as you’re concerned.

Kredo: Dem Congressman Who Bailed on Anti-Israel Event He Sponsored Should Explain His Support

Washington Free Beacon reporter Adam Kredo appeared on One America News Monday to discuss how he broke a story about a Democratic congressman sponsoring an anti-Israel event on Capitol Hill that he ultimately bailed on after Kredo's story was published.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D., Wis.) was initially an anonymous sponsor of the event on Capitol Hill that drew outrage for taking aim at Israel's military, saying the Jewish state was guilty of "systematic discrimination" against Palestinians in "occupied" territory. Pocan reserved space for the event on Capitol Hill that was also supported by groups that back boycotts against Israel.
Kredo reported on his involvement, and Pocan then declined to attend the forum:
Pocan, who originally sponsored the event anonymously before the Washington Free Beacon disclosed his identity, was not seen at the forum, despite it being customary for members of Congress to personally appear at the events they help organize.
Pocan reserved official Capitol Hill space for a forum backed by several anti-Israel groups that support boycotts of the Jewish state.
News of the event sparked ire on Capitol Hill and among pro-Israel supporters who saw the event as a propaganda effort aimed at defaming the Jewish state.

Kredo: Dem Congressman who bailed on anti-Israel event he sponsored should explain support

Radiohead singer still under pressure over band’s Israel concert

Pro-Palestinian groups have hit back at Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, who has called criticism of his band’s upcoming concert in Israel “patronizing” and “upsetting.”
Dozens of high-profile artists had signed a letter sent to Radiohead in February urging the band to cancel its July performance in Tel Aviv. Earlier this month, Yorke said the letter was “offensive” and called out its signees for assuming the band is not informed on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Since then, several groups have chastised Yorke for his rhetoric and criticized him for refusing to further discuss the topic.
“Thom’s is a simple choice: will he stand with the oppressor or the oppressed?” said film director Ken Loach in a statement through Artists for Palestine UK on June 5.

Radiohead: My New Favorite Band

I have to admit that I haven’t spent much time thinking about the band Radiohead in recent years.
In fact, the last time I thought of them was when a young man with a long psychiatric history came to my ER with paranoid delusions. He told us about a government plot to implant recording devices inside of people’s brains. After evaluating him with my medical student, she tried to make an inappropriate joke, and called him a “Radiohead.”
Today, however, Radiohead is my new favorite band. Not because I particularly like their music, but because they’ve taken a public stand against the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
Back in April — coincidentally around the time of Passover, our national holiday of freedom — Radiohead began to receive significant criticism about its plans to play a show in Israel this summer. The attack, led by the BDS’ supervillian — Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters — urged Radiohead to cancel their show. Those proposing a boycott sent a letter to Radiohead, which was also signed by proud antisemites Alice Walker (who has noted that “Jews learned how to rape, murder, steal, and occupy from their Torah”) and Desmond Tutu (who popularized the terms “Zionist Apartheid” and “the Jewish Monopoly of The Holocaust”).
Rather than capitulate to the biased and absurd pressures of these “peace experts” — who simultaneously whitewash Arab terrorism both in Israel and abroad — Radiohead fought back.

NGO Monitor: Open Letter: EU Funding to Organizations that Incite to Violence and Justify Terror

Dear Ms. Mogherini,
On May 17, 2017, the European Parliament passed a resolution concerning the Middle East peace process, which “stresses the responsibility of relevant EU authorities in continuing to ensure that no EU funding can be directly or indirectly diverted to terrorist organisations or activities that incite these acts” (emphasis added). This unprecedented and welcome commitment provides a foundation for the EU to address its funding to civil society and to challenge the notion that all support for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has a positive impact. In recent weeks, the issue of European government funding to NGOs active in the Arab-Israeli conflict has gained considerable traction, following Norway’s and Denmark’s withdrawal of funding from a Palestinian NGO that glorified terror. Denmark additionally froze its funding to all NGO beneficiaries of the Human Rights and International Law Secretariat (the Secretariat), pending an investigation. The Secretariat is a joint funding mechanism of the Danish, Dutch, Swedish, and Swiss governments.
In light of these developments, we would like to bring your attention to EU funding to organizations that incite violence and/or justify terror.
An EU “Cultural Diplomacy” grant of €200,000 (2015-2017) was given to three Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for the stated purpose of “increase[ing] public awareness of EU core values…” Among the recipients is the Ramallah-based group Popular Art Centre (PAC).
In February 2016, PAC organized a ceremony in honor of “Palestinian martyrs” whose homes were demolished, featuring the “father of the martyr Baha Eleyan” as a speaker (NGO Monitor translation). Eleyan was one of two terrorists to board a bus in Jerusalem in October 2015 armed with a gun and a knife, murdering three and injuring seven. The same ceremony featured a musical performance captioned “no to laying down guns” (NGO Monitor translation).
The European Union’s East Jerusalem Programme provided Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC) and three partner organisations with €2.5 million for a project ending April 2019. Manal Tamimi – a WCLAC employee – frequently utilizes antisemitic and violent rhetoric and imagery on social media. In September 2015, Tamimi tweeted, “Vampire zionist celebrating their Kebore day by drinking Palestinian bloods, yes our blood is pure & delicious but it will kill u at the end.” In August 2015, Tamimi tweeted, “I do hate Israel ,i (sic) wish a thrid Intefada (sic) coming soon and people rais (sic) up and kill all these zionist settlers everywhere.”

UKMW prompts Times of London correction to article erasing Jewish ties to Gush Etzion

On June 11th, we tweeted Times of London and the journalist (Louise Callaghan) responsible for an article titled “Sun, gun and wine: tourists taste life of Israeli settlers”, regarding an extremely misleading claim about Jewish communities in Gush Etzion.
As we explained in a subsequent complaint to Times editors, the Gush Etzion main communities were founded before 1948, in the 1920s and 1930s, on land legally purchased by Jews. Jews living at the original Kibbutzim were killed during the 1929 Arab riots, then re-established and destroyed again during Arab revolt of 1936-1939. Though Gush communities were re-established in the 1940s, they were again destroyed by Arabs fighters during the 1948 war.
Though the winery itself is located on a post-67 community in the Gush Etzion bloc, the awkward and misleading text in the Times article made no mention of Gush Etzion’s unique history, and the legal and historic Jewish ties to the land.
After a series of emails with editors, they agreed to amend the text, which now reads:
A sign on the winery welcomes visitors to the settlement of Gush Etzion, parts of which were settled by Jews during the 1920 and 30s, on land purchased legally, before they were driven away, and which is considered by the locals to be part of Israel. But the town is in the West Bank, built on land seized from the Palestinians after the Six Day War of 1967.

AFP Falsely Reports: Hamas Accepts State 'Limited to 1967 Borders'

Influential wire service Agence France Presse falsely reported yesterday that Hamas' May 1 policy document accepts a Palestinian state "limited to the 1967 borders" ("Gaza: Palestinian territory ravaged by war, poverty").
In no way does the new Hamas document signal an acceptance of a Palestinian state "limited to the 1967 borders." In fact, it says the exact opposite. The wording is:
Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus. . . .
A real state of Palestine is a state that has been liberated. There is no alternative to a fully sovereign Palestinian State on the entire national Palestinian soil, with Jerusalem as its capital.
In an interview with Reuters, Hamas' Mahmoud al-Zahar emphasized that the new document is a "mechanism" for Hamas' pledge "to liberate all of Palestine." Reuters reported:

How a U.S. Army Lawyer Used Anti-Semitism to Exonerate an SS Unit That Slaughtered American POWs

In the midst of the Battle of the Bulge, a unit of the Waffen-SS massacred 84 captured American soldiers near the Belgian village of Malmedy. Having taken hundreds of members of the unit prisoner after the war, the Army arranged for their interrogation and trial, assigning Colonel Willis Everett the unenviable task of defending them in the courtroom. Everett tried to make the most of their stories of mistreatment at the hands of their interrogators—most of whom were German-speaking Jewish intelligence officers—and thus unleashed a familiar brew of anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, and Holocaust inversion. Reviewing a recent study of the episode by Steven P. Remy, Gabriel Schoenfeld writes:
Remy shows that Everett had come to regard the Allied occupation of Germany as “corrupt and misguided.” Worse, his sympathies “lay not with the victims of Nazi Germany but with Germans—including former Nazis—victimized, in his mind, by ignominious defeat and a vengeance-filled occupation.” Everett’s fervor was fueled by a prejudice not uncommon at the time: believing that American military justice had been “subverted by vengeance-seeking Jews,” i.e., the interrogators.
In his anti-Semitism, as Remy shows, Everett was swimming in a broader current. Warren Magee, the American defense counsel for the last seven Nazi war criminals condemned to death at Nuremberg, regarded the Allied war-crime trials as “Mosaic” justice. . . .
As Everett and like-minded personages floated their accounts of German prisoners subjected to physical abuse, stories began to appear in various quarters of the American press. . . . It did not take long for the story to seep into the mainstream media and central institutions. Time hailed Everett for revealing abuses that “read like a record of Nazi atrocities.” . . .

Neo-Nazi who allegedly planned to target synagogues not a threat, says judge

A self-proclaimed neo-Nazi arrested after agents found bomb-making materials in his Florida apartment planned to use the explosives to harm civilians, nuclear facilities and synagogues, federal prosecutors said.
The prosecutors made the allegations in court documents on Monday, a day before a judge set a $200,000 bond and conditions for the possible release of Brandon Russell, 21.
Prosecutors said Russell wanted to “kill civilians and target locations like power lines, nuclear reactors, and synagogues,” according to court documents based on testimony
The judge overseeing the case, however, allowed the suspect to post bond, writing in his ruling that Russell did not represent a threat to others or the community at this time.

NY Lawmakers Demand Trump Deport Nazi Death Camp Officer From Queens

A delegation of New York state lawmakers are petitioning President Donald Trump's Department of Justice to deport from the United States a former Nazi concentration camp officer who has been living in Queens for more than a decade, according to a copy of a formal petition letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
More than 85 members of the New York State Assembly, led by Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an Orthodox Jew, sent a formal petition to Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday, asking that his Justice Department "do everything in its power" to remove former Nazi officer Jakiw Palij from the United States.
The lawmakers allege that Palij served as a Nazi guard at the Treblinka death camp, where he facilitated the death of "thousands of innocent men, women, and children" who were murdered by the Nazi regime "and thrown into pits," according to the letter to Sessions. He also is accused of acting as an "armed guard" at the Trawinki Nazi training camp, where Adolf Hitler's war forces trained to exterminate Polish Jews.
Palij has been found guilty of immigrating to the United States under false pretenses. Palij allegedly claimed he was "a farmer and war refugee" on his citizenship applications and did not disclose his ties to the Nazi regime. He was granted American citizenship in 1957.
While Palij's citizenship was stripped in the early 2000s, after his Nazi past was disclosed, he has yet to be deported, despite a nearly 10-year long campaign by state lawmakers and others to see him booted from the United States.

Case against anti-Semitic EU official lands in court

The case of a Maltese European Union official accused of shouting anti-Semitic hate speech at an EU employee and assaulting her has come to trial two years after the incident occurred.
EU administrator Stefan Grech in September 2015 allegedly beat a senior employee, an Italian woman, over the head with a plaque commemorating Italian dictator Benito Mussolini while calling her “a dirty Jew” and saying “Hitler should have finished off the Jews.” He also reportedly had made comments about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
A complaint against him was filed at the time with Brussels police by the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, or LBCA.
Grech was not present at a preliminary hearing this week, LBCA head Joel Rubinfeld told the Times of Malta, leading the judge to say that it showed a lack of respect toward the courts.
In an interview with the Times of Malta, Grech denied the account of the incident in the complaint. He was not suspended from his job over the incident. Grech also said the case had affected him so much he had taken several months of sick leave and sought counseling from a psychologist.

Iraqi Jews in Israel record their stories

The oral history project Sephardi Voices is about to launch its Iraqi Voices project, funded by the Iraqi-Jewish businessmen Dennis and Robert Shasha.
Sitting in her airy, light-filled home outside of Jerusalem, surrounded by a garden and wide views of the Judean Hills, Linda Menuhin says thoughtfully, “I left Iraq more than 40 years ago. But Iraq never left me.”
Menuhin, 67, (above) was recently interviewed for Sephardi Voices, an ongoing project designed to create an audiovisual documentary archive of life stories, photographs and artifacts of Sephardi and Iranian Jews.
Menuhin reveals that throughout her career she had been a radio and television reporter, an intelligence analyst with the Israeli police and a consultant to various ministries. “Since I was born and raised in Iraq, my Arabic was fluent and much of my career was based on that," she says. "But because of my experiences there, I was so hurt I had shut down and couldn’t really think about life there. I had to heal. It took me years to open up.”
It's that opening up that Henry Green, professor of religious studies and executive director of the Sephardi Voices project, seeks to capture. “Jews lived in North Africa, the Middle East and Iran for millennia," says Green, who was recently in Israel to interview and film for the project.

Brazil’s leading journalist stars in Jewish identity campaign

A Brazilian journalist who was elected LinkedIn’s #1 voice in 2016 is starring in a campaign to reinforce the Jewish identity among members of Latin America’s second largest Jewish community.
Marc Tawil, 43, spoke about the Jewish influences in his life and career in a 10-minute-long video in Portuguese as part of the web-based “Judaism Does Good” campaign run by the Sao Paulo Jewish Federation. A journalist, radio broadcaster and writer, he has written some 60 articles read by more than 7 million people.
“I believe Judaism not only does go for me but also for all people who have contact with it. Perpetuating Judaism is about the values,” Tawil said in the video. “I always affirm myself as Jewish both inside and outside the Jewish community. I am proud of the Jewish schools I have attended and for having started my career in the Jewish media,” he added.
The campaign was inspired by another initiative from 2003 called “Judaism feels good and does good,” which featured advertisements in major newspapers and magazines and over 30 billboards targeting the 36 million inhabitants of Sao Paulo state.

Israel to test fire anti-missile system.... in Alaska

Israel is set to carry out a joint test of its Arrow 3 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) defense system in the United States next year, the first time such a test will occur outside of Israeli territory.
The exercise, which will be carried out in cooperation with the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA), is set to take place on the Alaskan island of Kodiak where the system will be tested against targets simulating advanced ballistic missiles being developed by Iran.
Israel and the United States are concerned that Iran has continued to work on both its nuclear program as well as its ballistic missile program despite international criticism. In light of the perceived missile threat, the two allies have worked together to develop several missile defense systems, including the Arrow 3, which was co-managed by the US Missile Defense Agency and IMDO, a division of the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
Considered one of the world's best interceptors due to its breakthrough technological capabilities, the Arrow 3 is a highly maneuverable system designed to provide ultimate air defense by intercepting ballistic missiles when they are still outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

Israel on Verge of Signing $500 Million Deal to Sell Spike Anti-Tank Missiles to India, Report Says

An Israeli soldier displays a Spike anti-tank guided missile launcher. Photo: Natan Flayer via Wikimedia Commons.
Israel is on the verge of signing a $500 million dollar deal to provide India with Spike anti-tank guided missiles, The Hindu reported this past weekend.
It is expected that the deal — under the terms of which the Indian military will receive more than 8,000 missiles and 300 launchers, which are built by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems — will be finalized during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s historic trip to Israel next month.
Modi is set to become the first sitting Indian prime minister to set foot in Israel. His visit comes as Israel and India mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. In recent years, the relationship between the two countries has flourished in a number of realms, including the defense field.
However, an Indian official told The Hindu, Modi’s Israel trip “will not be defense-centric.”
“Earlier, the relationship was based on defense, but now we have gone beyond that,” the official was quoted as saying.
During his stay in Israel, Modi — as reported in The Algemeiner last week — will not travel to Ramallah or any other part of the Palestinian Authority, unlike most foreign leaders during visits to the Jewish state.

Flying PM, female ultra-Orthodox pilot breaks glass ceiling

The El Al flight taking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife to Greece on Wednesday was piloted by a female ultra-Orthodox woman, a first for an official flight.
Nechama Spiegel Novak, a mother of four who has been flying Israel’s national carrier since earlier this year, left Ben Gurion International Airport on Wednesday morning guiding a chartered Boeing 737 to Thessaloniki, where Netanyahu is participating in a trilateral summit with Greece and Cyprus.
The prime minister and his wife, Sara, took several photos with the pilot, who was the first officer on the flight, before they took off.
Novak attended flight school in the United States, where she worked to log enough flight hours. Unlike most Israeli pilots, she did not serve in the Israeli Air Force, where most pilots log their flight hours and get their licenses.
“Being a pilot has always been a dream of mine. My husband is very supportive, and he is helping realize this dream,” she said in 2015 when she started her flight training.

New York street corner named after Elie Wiesel

The southwest corner of 84th Street and Central Park West in New York will now be known as Elie Wiesel Way, honoring the Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize winner and celebrated author a year after his death.
A moving ceremony to unveil the co-naming of the street on Tuesday was attended by dignitaries including New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio and members of the Wiesel family.
Mayor DeBlasio praised Wiesel, a venerated advocate for human rights, as "perhaps the most eloquent voice for peace in our world," and added that "New York City is proud to honor his memory."
Wiesel died in July 2016, age 87, following a prolonged illness. Born in 1928 in the Transylvanian town of Sighet, now part of Romania, Wiesel was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp when he was only 15 years old.
After the war, Wiesel put pen to paper and wrote about his harrowing experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. His most celebrated work, 'Night', has been translated into more than 30 languages.

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